JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(Business Wire)--Several international unions representing hundreds of thousands of chemical industry workers today criticized the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) for abrogating its mandate to recommend strong EPA and OSHA standards to prevent runaway reactions in chemical factories,

NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP) — Pipe corrosion that went undetected for years led to an explosion and fire that rocked a Sunoco oil refinery in Claymont in May, authorities said Tuesday.

August 7 - A four-member investigative team from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is deploying to the site of a release of propane and hydrogen fluoride at the ExxonMobil refinery in Joliet, Illinois.

Aug 4 - AIChE's Center for Chemical Process Safety, in cooperation with John Wiley & Sons, has published "Continuous Monitoring for Hazardous Material Releases." Experts have found that equipment for detecting catastrophic chemical releases has often been used inappropriately, or that the information generated falls short.

JUN 12 Chemical, pulp and paper plant security may well be the final frontier in action needed to protect our communities, workers, businesses and critical infrastructure. Across the country, there are more than 100 facilities that each put more than 1 million Americans at risk of injury or death in the event of an accident or terrorist attack at these plants.

May22 - The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Delek Refining Ltd. in Tyler, Texas, with an alleged willful and 29 alleged serious violations after a fire and explosion claimed the lives of two workers and injured three others. Proposed penalties total $217,350.

May 17 - The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Hess Corporation for workplace safety and health violations with proposed fines totaling $141,500.

Environmental groups have accused BP of dropping its pledge to be green and replacing it with a commitment to be "responsible".

April 20 - A toxic tort lawsuit has been filed on behalf of 143 people who worked at or lived near an oil refinery owned by BP America in Texas City, alleging that they were exposed to benzene and other harmful chemicals that were released into the air in April 2007.

April 10 - Calumet Specialty Products Partners' Shreveport refinery has implemented several safety changes and programs since a fire Oct. 30, a company spokeswoman says.

Mar 21 - Federal safety inspectors have proposed fines totaling $60,625 and issued citations for 18 "serious" violations and two other violations found during recent inspections at the Husky Energy Inc. refinery in Lima, Ohio.

Mar 20 - Sloppy practices and inadequate risk assessment by Total are to blame for the damage from the explosion at the Buncefield oil depot in Hertfordshire, a high court judge said yesterday in a ruling that could cost the oil company more than £750m in damages.

PARIS, Feb. 24 -- Trial began Feb. 23 against Total SA's fertilizer affiliate Grande Paroisse and the manager of the company's Toulouse plant where a workshop containing waste ammonitrates exploded in 2001.

ORANGE, Texas, Feb. 18, 2009 - DuPont Sabine River Works has completed its restart project following Hurricane Ike.

Feb 10 - In the message, Bresland notes that of eight catastrophic industrial dust explosions since 1995, all but one occurred during cold weather, with four of these occurring during February alone.

WOODS CROSS -- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board released new details about the Silver Eagle Refinery fire this morning, including findings that there were prior problems with the tank.

By Laura Walter In a new video safety message, U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) Chairman John Bresland urged companies to ensure they have effective winterization programs to prevent major chemical and refinery process accidents that could result in deaths or substantial property damage.

The investigation team, led by the Uk's Major Incidents Investigation Board (MIIB), has produced a series of heavyweight reports into issues such as safety management at storage sites for fuels, planning round industrial sites and the environmental impact. A key lesson is that at site level, process safety must be secured by automatic systems, without reliance on human intervention.

Guidelines for the Management of Change for Process Safety provides guidance on the implementation of effective and efficient Management of Change (MOC) procedures, which can be applied to improve process safety. In addition to introducing MOC systems, the book describes how to design an initial system from scratch, including the scope of the system and the applications over a plant life cycle and the boundaries and overlaps with other process safety management systems.

A four-member investigative team from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is expected to arrive this afternoon at the Woods Cross, Utah, site of a refinery fire on Monday that seriously burned four workers. The team will be headed by CSB Investigator Supervisor Donald Holmstrom, CSB announced.

Process safety systems for the offshore oil/gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico have taken a very different path than those of their onshore brethren.

HOUSTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - A U.S. refiners association said on Monday the industry was blindsided by a federal court ruling in a case brought by the Sierra Club that increases the chances of companies being fined while using plant safety flares during shutdowns, start-ups and malfunctions.

Why have so few companies achieved stronger results? The reason is simple – they often fail to fully address the non-technical element of such an initiative – the human factor. The component with the greatest variation in any manufacturing system is the “human” component, yet we neglect to address this aspect because it is non-technical. Most organizations are very good at solving technical problems because they have good problem-solvers with sound technical skills. However, as Michael Hammer states in Re-Engineering the Corporation: “The technical problems are the easy problems … the soft stuff is the hard stuff.”

The first step in eliminating inappropriate human behaviors is to define the appropriate ones. These definitions should be codified in corporate policies and procedures. A corporate policy, for example, may state that all sensitive data on laptops must be encrypted and protected with a password of sufficient strength.

We’ve Come a Long Way from the Days When Refinery Operators Used Flaming Arrows to Relight Their Flare Systems, but Even Bigger Changes May Be Ahead

Despite the inauspicious start, the strict ordinance — celebrating its 10th anniversary in January — became a model for the nation. Contra Costa and Richmond, which adopted the county ordinance in 2002, have yet to record a single refinery or chemical plant accident this year — an unprecedented achievement.

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the world's worst industrial disaster--one that has been called the "Hiroshima of the chemical industry" and that took place in Bhopal, India.

The onset of a plant fault or serious accident presents the most severe challenge to a plant operator's skill. Coping with an emergency or a serious incident in a process plant requires fluent and co-ordinated team activity.

The process industry is involved with the conversion of raw materials, through a series of chemical processing steps, to valued products and is a key economic sector in the U.S. and globally.